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Friday, August 14, 2009

Fun match, classes, and muffins

Wall-e had his second fun match on Sunday. He's awesome! He had that teeter fly-off because he thought it was a DW. He got all the rest of the teeters perfectly though.

Guess what I used as rewards at the fun match...Rollover dog treats, cheese, sausage, sweet potato...and a bit of a blueberry muffin! Yes, a muffin! He LOVES muffins. At Nationals a couple weeks ago my grandmother was bending over to take some muffins out of a plastic bag, and Wall-e was right behind her. Wall-e stuck his head right between her legs, grabbed a big chunk of a muffin, and trotted away with his prize!! It was the funniest thing! Then a couple days before the fun match, my brother took out a muffin (I think they were the same muffins my grandmother brought) and put it in a bowl. He put the bowl on the coffee table while he went to get something. Wall-e went over to the muffin and proceeded to eat the top of it, and managed to eat most of the top before it was taken away from him. Since he seems to be pretty muffin-crazy, I used the rest of the top of that muffin at his fun match for a GREAT reward!

He's also taking some puppy foundation classes for agility. I guess he's not really a puppy anymore (14 1/2 months) but I got him in November last year, and the place where the classes are held is too far to drive during the school year. Now that it's summer, I have a lot more time on my hands, so we're taking the classes now. Wall-e and I love the foundation classes. They're great because they get him familiar with a venue that he'll be trialing at next year, and they encourage me to continue his foundation training even though he's old enough to be doing "real agility" now.

Quick descriptions of the classes we've had so far:

Class #1Only the humans went to this class, no dogs. We talked about different elements of good dog training among other puppy-related things, and were given binders which, by the end of the course, will be filled with pages of very useful information and journals. (Each week we are given behaviours to train and fill out our training journals.)

Class #2Puppies came to this class. The other puppies in this class are a BC, two aussies, a springer, and a Portuguese Water Dog. Wall-e is definitely the oldest by far -- the second oldest is a now 18 week old old rescue aussie. Wall-e doesn't mind at all, and LOVES the puppies. (He especially loves socializing with them before class.) This class we worked on getting the puppies playing in that environment and back-end awareness with a PVC ladder.

Class #3Lots of back-end awareness stuff, first with a perch (a.k.a. the "elephant" trick). Wall-e did AMAZING, and the instructor said he had perfect back-end awareness! Yay Wall-e! Then we shaped the puppies to put 4 paws on a balance disc, first a big one and then a small one. Wall-e was the only dog who was able to put all 4 paws on the small disc. I'm glad that all the foundation training I did with him is really paying off. We ended the class with getting the puppies familiar with a wobble board. He loved the wobble board and had no worries about the movement.

3 comments:

Wall-e's looking great! So fast and focused. Lucy once had a teeter flyoff like that, a la Wile E. Coyote, at a trial. Took lots and lots of sardines (stinky!!) to get her okay with teeters again. What a fearless Mr. Wall-e for going right back on!

Wall-e actually seemed a bit hesitant at the teeter at the field today, I don't know if it's because he's just not used to that teeter or because of the fly-off. Nevertheless, I'm going back to basics with the teeter to get his confidence back up :)

Welcome!

Hi there! It's good to see you stopping in at my blog. On Dream Dogz, I write about my two active dogs' agility training and trialing, and share all of the lessons I learn along the way. I also occasionally talk about our progress in dealing with my dogs' specific "challenges" that we are slowly, but surely, overcoming together (specifically, Mika's dog reactivity and Wall-e's fear of constant noises).